


proximity

by earthling (rootcellars)



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: M/M, baby drag queens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25277614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rootcellars/pseuds/earthling
Summary: It’s only March, somehow, and Kim is starting to feel like a U-Haul lesbian.
Relationships: Kim Chi/Trixie Mattel
Kudos: 5





	proximity

Wonder Girls are playing in the background from her tinny speakers. Irony, irony, they sing, and Kim peers into the drugstore makeup mirror and tries to draw her eyeliner on with shaky hands. Irony indeed. Trixie is crammed into the tiny apartment’s tinier bathroom, peeing or shaving her back or who knows what, and it’s the two of them out on the town for the fifth time now this year.

It’s only March, somehow, and Kim is starting to feel like a U-Haul lesbian. At least she’s not the one shuttling across the frozen Midwest for hours each weekend by Greyhound to squeeze into her best friend’s bed in the hopes of making a few bucks at a drag show in the city. But she’s the one who had invited Trixie over first and then a million more times, starting all those months ago when Shea had first introduced them, two busted Barbie dolls in the Friday night crowd at Roscoe’s.

They had de-dragged together at Kim’s, peeling off their layers of tights and the socks stuffed into their bras. Kim had let Trixie shower first, as all good hosts do, and that was when she’d seen her out of drag for the first time – a fresh-faced Midwestern boy with her round cheeks and that cute pointy nose. Later, when they’d been lying side by side in bed, two fully grown men under a comforter not quite wide enough for them both, Trixie had bent her head over into the crook of Kim’s neck.

The thought still makes her shiver. In a pleasurable or an uncomfortable way, Kim isn’t sure. Trixie is snuggly in her sleep, and sometimes Kim will wake up with an arm snaked around her own. In those moments it’s hard to forget she has a body, this body, with its specific shape and heft.

Trixie emerges from the bathroom in messy-looking half drag, and Kim is working on her eyebrows now. “You better not have been jacking off in my tub,” she tells Trixie, trying to keep her face as still as possible, and Trixie laughs her maniacal scream-laugh and struts over in just her padding and tights, posing with her hands on her hips. She crowds in next to Kim, their shoulders jostling, and grabs the Maybelline foundation they’ve resorted to sharing. A little too cool-toned for Kim, a little too sallow for Trixie, but they’re making it work.

It’s the quiet intimacy of getting ready next to each other that Kim loves most about having another drag queen for a best friend. Trixie’s bopping along to Girls’ Generation while powdering her face, feeling her full fantasy, and Kim has to smile. They put on their outfits, pin their wigs in clumsily. Then they’re standing on the chilly Chicago sidewalk in full drag together waiting for a taxi. Trixie loops her arm around Kim’s elbow.

“You’re really warm,” says Trixie, looking down at Kim’s long skirts billowing in the wind. Her other hand moves to Kim’s face, and then her forehead.

“Asian glow,” Kim says. She doesn’t need to feel her cheeks herself to know they’re burning hot. The lights of the taxi suddenly appear around the corner. “Hey,” she says, turning to Trixie. “You think we can pass if we don’t open our mouths?”

“Maybe you,” says Trixie, and she’s grinning as they slide into the backseat together, two tall and garish women dressed up like birds of paradise, smelling like sweat and baby powder. Stifling their laughter, they exchange glances like innocent maidens, and Trixie poses with her hand on her cheek as if she’s Marilyn Monroe. Kim folds her hands over her long skirts demurely, and flutters her eyelashes. Trixie shakes her head because she can’t pull off the same schtick, in a bodycon that stops just below her ass, with her pantyhosed legs going on for days.

By the time they enter the club the crowd’s already going, and Shea meets them at the improvised backstage with their drink tickets and a rundown of the schedule. “Lesbians in the house!” she’s shouting, her own drink sloshing in her hand. Kim goes in for a hug, Trixie for a kiss on the cheek. Shea’s energy is always infectious. “Serving sex on legs,” she exclaims, scanning up and down Trixie’s body, and then turns to Kim and quirks an eyebrow. “Madam Kimberly.”

It’s much later, after Shea has done an incredible set and Trixie has finished her Barbie-themed routine, that Kim finds herself in the middle of the sweaty Saturday crowd. Bar-goers are reaching out to stroke her hair, and when she raises her arms up, the circle around her follows. They’re hooting and cheering. Kim towers over most of them in heels, and she smiles beatifically, knowing her makeup will shape her smile pretty. But it’s overcrowding, suddenly, and she stumbles to the edge of the dance floor and grabs Trixie’s hand. Kim doesn’t want to leave, per se, but she wants some anonymity.

“I’m gonna – uh – de-drag backstage,” she huffs, and Trixie grabs both their drinks to follow. “Yes bitch,” she says, “I can’t wait to get out of this.” They rip off their layers, stuffing sweaty pantyhose into their bags, and rubbing makeup wipes over their faces. Kim peeks into the mirror, trying to make sure most of the black around her eyes is rubbed out. She looks messy, a chubby Asian boy who tried on some eyeliner and stumbled into a gay bar for the first time in his life.

It doesn’t make her feel good, but it makes her feel smaller. Maybe that’s what she needs. Next to her, Trixie is practically beaming, happy to be in boy form again.

“Let’s just dance!” Kim shouts once they’re back out on the floor, and she and Trixie stick to a corner and bop. Kim has never really known how to dance, but in the dark, five drinks in, with music blasting through a crowd, it’s a little easier to just move her body without thinking about how it looks from the outside. And Trixie has never said anything about it either, so Kim tries not to think about how it must look to her.

The music changes to Dancing Queen, and the crowd is suffused with screams. Trixie grabs Kim’s hands. “Bitch!” she’s shouting, “This is so fucking fun!” Kim is nodding, screaming back, jumping up and down with everyone else to the rhythm. Their arms tangle and their legs are bumping, but Kim closes her eyes and tries to shut out the feeling with all the synth.

**Author's Note:**

> i know this goes nowhere but it's about the vibes
> 
> for jo-ann <3


End file.
